The present invention relates to a robot system in which a moving position is controlled by visual recognition.
Nowadays, a number of robot systems have been employed in industrial fields. In most of the general purpose robot systems, pre-taught operational positions of robot are assigned and stored in a control circuit. As the program goes on, when an operational position is invoked, the robot is displaced to the pre-taught, assigned position.
In some other systems, the robot is provided with a visual sensor which recognizes a target and allows for guidance of the robot in the direction of the target. However, even if a robot is provided with several sensors, the limited size of the robot does not allow the sensors to be set far enough away from each other for the robot to recognize the correct three-dimensional position of the target. Such robot systems, which have not yet been universalized due to their restrictions, still remain costly.
The primary purpose of the present invention is to furnish a visually controlled robot system that allows for operational control of the robot by means of commercially-available, general-purpose robots and commercially-available, general-purpose visual recognition devices.
To achieve this purpose, the visually controlled robot system of the present invention comprises a robot means for three-dimensional motion, means for taking images of the entire moving area of the robot, a visible target existing within the moving area of the robot, a control circuit having a function which recognizes beforehand the moving area of the robot and another function which stores in a memory the position of the visible target as shown by the images from the image taking means, as well as an ordering signal to move the robot to the position of the visible target, and a drive control means for driving the robot according to said ordering signal.
A visually controlled robot system of another aspect according to the present invention further comprises a display means and an input means. The input means is connected to the control circuit for inputting a coordinate from the display means, and the control circuit has the additional function of giving the drive control means an ordering signal to move the robot to a position corresponding to the coordinate as instructed.